Broadband and Wireless speeds

This is a discussion on Broadband and Wireless speeds within the Sky Broadband help forums, part of the Sky Broadband help and support category; Firstly, I'm new to this forum but have used it many times to solve simple issues I'm having - keep ...

Broadband and Wireless speeds

Firstly, I'm new to this forum but have used it many times to solve simple issues I'm having - keep up the good work. Unfortunately I can't solve the following issues...sorry this might be a long post! PS I'm not remotely an expert on this - everything I've gleamed has come from this forum and a couple of others similar!!

I have 2 questions:

General broadband speed (yes I'm sure asked numerous times!!)?

Wireless speed?

Firstly my setup:

Sky Unlimited with a Sagem F@ST2504n router - all default settings (will talk about this later)

Brand new home-built media PC with SSD and fast CPU but connected by a wireless N card running Windows 7 Home Premium

My issues - sorry there are quite a few!!!
1. I seem to be getting very slow speeds for my connection type:

Port

Status

TxPkts

RxPkts

Collisions

Tx B/s

Rx B/s

Up Time

WAN

PPPoA

4673

5358

0

688

3511

0:16:45

LAN

Up

109580

157081

0

22484

172997

0:17:45

WLAN

Up

169628

112215

0

178828

22031

0:17:24

ADSL Link

Downstream

Upstream

Connection Speed

5716 kbps

942 kbps

Line Attenuation

48.0 dB

30.2 dB

Noise Margin

6.8 dB

7.7 dB

I live about 2km from the exchange in Vauxhall London, in a new build block of flats. I've attached my router to the master BT socket to check if that makes any difference - no difference. Should this be right, Sky goes on about having fast broadband connections, this certainly isn't that. However, based on looking at the forums, I get there are other people out there with way worse problems than me!

2. The wireless connections I'm achieving are terrible IMO (have googled it and am not completely sure what I should be getting. The following tests were all done with a 50Mb file via "Lan Speed Test"):

When I look at Window's wireless connection stats, it states that both machines are connected at 65Mbps - doesn't sound right for wireless N connections?

With both machines connected wirelessly, I get a write speed of 11Mbps and read of 12 with only around 20% of the network utilization used (from Windows Task Manager)

With the laptop on ethernet and the media PC on wireless, it goes up t0 30Mbps and 16 using about 30% of the wireless network from the laptop

With both on ethernet, I get 91Mbps write and 93 read with both machines running at around 95% LAN utilization rate.

Given both machines should be connected at wireless N speeds (so just over 100Mbps), why am I getting such rubbish results? I've tried changing channels to a less used channel but that just made it worse! Both PCs are within 6ft of the router and, other than the NAS, there's nothing electrical near the router.

I hope this isn't too rambling as a question and there are people out there who can help. If not, I'm buying a new router!!!

Re: Broadband and Wireless speeds

Your connection speed is just a little bit low, most now are getting 7-8 Mb with your attenuation. You may be 2K from the exchange as the crow flies or even by road, but your attenuation shows your line is much longer, about 3.5K I would say. You could call Sky and ask them to start DLM training on your line.

The router is a wireless N router, but it is only capable of a maximum of 144Mbps. What you actually get will depend on what your adapters are capable of. In any case with your internet speed 65mbps is plenty fast enough. It may slow down internal transfers, but that is all. If you moved to a Fibre(40mb) connection, the wireless speed would then be inadequate. One thing to check is that your wireless encryption is set to WPA2-AES, this will allow the full N speed available.

Re: Broadband and Wireless speeds

Thank you very much for your response - I'll get onto the phone to Sky tomorrow. I forgot to mention that they have my line set to 2Mb (when I look at my account setting via MySky)

In terms of the wireless part of my question, just to clarify this is nothing to do with broadband speed, this purely about the speed the router will run at. In fact, when I ran all the tests I had the router unplugged from the phone cable just to make sure that it couldn't interfere with any of the speeds (probably makes sod all difference!!!!!). The main reason why I’m asking about the poor wireless speed is that my NAS is running so slowly to other wireless devices so I’m trying to eliminate the router first (even though I think that’s what the problem is!!!)
Thanks again for your reply

Re: Broadband and Wireless speeds

the best you can get on some adaptors on sagem in 72 on wireless if set to wap2-AES but do some ping test just between router and computer using different channels as some channel may be slowing you down , run insssider programme to see if any free channels in area aslo check for other forms interference as istme said ask for dlm to be run should raise stats abit

Re: Broadband and Wireless speeds

Hi Tenar and thanks for your reply.

I've just set it to wap2-AES and have a very marginal increase (not enough to keep it set at that as I need some older G connections when fully up and running. I know my network will slow down if I connect a G rather than all N but trying to get a proper N speed first!!)

I've been using Lan Speed Test as a better (so I'm told) alternative to a real world speed test to test the connection across my network (again completely excluding the broadband connection).

I've also already tried inSSider and changed to the quietest channel (4) but that hasn't made any difference so I've put it back to 1 (where the router defaulted to anyway). Just to add, I'm sitting right beside the router and the other PC is about 10ft away from it with a clear line of sight.

Just to reclaify, one of my PCs is brand new and the other is about 2 years old but is a good spec Sony Viao - so I'm pretty confident that the hardware on the PC's isn't the problem.

Any other ideas - surely I should get way quicker wireless speeds than this???

Re: Broadband and Wireless speeds

First go to the Sony site and download the latest drivers for your wireless adapter. Don't believe Windows when it says you have the latest drivers. I think your Vaio will have an Atheros chipset and there seems to be a lot of complaints about the speed they operate at. If possible see if you can borrow a USB adapter capable of 300 mbps, see if that makes any difference. I have a TP-Link WN821N, it is quite cheap and operates at 300mbps with a Dlink router I have, none of the Sky routers are not capable of this, but it would give you 144/150mbps.

Re: Broadband and Wireless speeds

Hi Isitme, I'd already tried that and you were correct to not trust what Windows said. Also, I didn't trust what Sony said, so got the very latest drivers from Atheros directly - no difference!!!!!!

On my new PC I have a 150Mbps TPLink PCI wireless adapter (TL-WN781ND) again with the latest drivers.

Given both PCs are coming up at similar low speeds, I can only conclude that it's the Sky router not behaving. When I spoke to Sky technical support yesterday about getting my line retested with a DLM, I also asked about the wireless speeds and got no proper answer. I asked to have my routers firmware updated but got told that I'd have to buy a new Sky router to get the latest firmware - surely that can't be right?!?

So my conclusion, buy a new router and piggyback it off the Sky broadband connection. Second positive is that I’d get a Gigabit Lan connection!!
Seems Sky aren’t very keen to sort their hardware out!!!

Re: Broadband and Wireless speeds

I asked to have my routers firmware updated but got told that I'd have to buy a new Sky router to get the latest firmware

You are correct, that's nonsense, but the chances are you have the latest firmware anyway. Buying your own router and either piggy backing it or connecting it direct is probably your best bet. Make sure you get one capable of at least 300mbps.

What you can do is run Inssider(link below) and this will tell you what speed the router is putting out. I think you will find it is 144mbps, but you need a compatible adapter to get that.

Re: Broadband and Wireless speeds

Thanks for the very swift response. Yes you're correct the router is pumping out at 144....that's what it's saying anyway just nothing seems to connect to it at that speed!! Out of interest, is there a way of running an app on the iPhone to test how quick the wifi connection is rather than an app for the the internet connection? If there is and it's still rubbish then I'm off shopping!!!

Before I buy a new 300Mbps router, if my laptop only runs at 150Mpbs (unless I buy a USB dongle), a few other wireless things around the house are only 54Mbps but I can cheaply upgrade my PC to teh full 300Mb, will running different speeds degrade the network materially? 300Mbps is quite a bit more expensive than 150Mbps!! Also, do you have any routers you could recommend - in the past I've only ever had Netgear and got quite used to the interface and terminolagy but would be happy to look at other brands if better and cheaper!!

Re: Broadband and Wireless speeds

Mixing G and N devices will slow down the N devices, not to G speed, but it will lower the maximum rate possible. If you are considering a new router and do not intend to upgrade your G devices it would be better to get a simultaneous dual band one. With one of these you can set the 2.4mhz to broadcast G and the 5ghz to broadcast N. These are all quite expensive.

What you could try is setting the router to N only and see if that makes a difference to your speed. Remember to use wireless N you must be using WPA2 with AES encryption. Anything less will reduce your speed.

I think the most recommended router on the forum is the Billion, mainly because it can be made compatible with Sky's version of MER and Sky fibre. Unfortunately they are not cheap. Netgears on the other hand are not compatible with MER or Fibre and they do not seem to be interested in making them so.